Robust Design
Welch Allyn’s laryngoscope design uses a single piece of 304-series stainless steel as its load-bearing member. All competitive blades are constructed from multiple pieces of stainless steel or brass that are bonded together using a solder or braze. These solders or brazes are vulnerable to corrosion due to harsh conditions associated with many sterilization methods. This one-piece construction of the Welch Allyn blade is more robust than the typical competitive product. Furthermore, its one-piece blade construction eliminates the potentially weaker soldered or brazed joint.
Design Features
Welch Allyn’s innovative design incorporates an easy-to-remove light pipe that eliminates the difficult-toclean areas of most competitive laryngoscopes.
Another feature designed to help improve the cleaning of a Welch Allyn blade is its surface finish. Typical laryngoscope finishes have a surface roughness of 32μ in. The surface finish used on all Welch Allyn blades has a roughness of just 8μ in. This creates a surface texture that is approximately four times smoother than competitive blades, resulting in an easier-to-clean, stain-resistant laryngoscope blade. What’s more, the surface finish is not a plating, and therefore does not alter the 304-series stainless steel construction of the blade itself.
Brighter by Design
The Welch Allyn Halogen HPX lamp is the latest technology in gas-filled lamps. By filling the lamp with a high-pressure mixture of halogen and xenon gases, we have invented a miniature lamp that is more than 30% brighter and whiter than standard halogen lamps. Blades can be economically upgraded from lamp to fiber-optic illumination
More Value by Design
There are primarily two causes of reduced light transmission in fiber optic laryngoscopes: fiber optic breakage and epoxy blockage. Light degradation caused by fiber optic breakage will occur in varying degrees in any laryngoscope that is subjected to severe changes in temperature. Blades are repairable at a fraction of the cost of a replacement blade
Reduced Light Degradation
When a fiber optic laryngoscope is steam-sterilized, the heat involved causes the epoxy (used to hold the fibers in place within the fiber optic bundle) to expand and extrude past the end of the light pipe.
The epoxy cools following the autoclave process and hardens over the optics, blocking light emissions from those fibers. As more and more fibers are blocked, less and less light is emitted and the accuracy of the intubation process may be jeopardized.
The MacIntosh design has remained virtually unchanged since it was created in 1943—and is currently the most popular of all curved blade styles. Recent modifications have reduced the proximal blade height — resulting in a lower profile that assists in intubating patients with limited oral access.
- Size 1: 89 mm Overall Length, 63 mm Length Inside Base to Tip
- Size 2: 108 mm Overall Length, 82 mm Length Inside Base to Tip
- Size 3: 126 mm Overall Length, 101 mm Length Inside Base to Tip
- Size 4: 160 mm Overall Length, 135 mm Length Inside Base to Tip
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